This is just me Jerome talking about whatever might come to mind. Mostly electronics design topics, but no promising anything.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Solar Converters are the new Plastics.

I have been courting this company, or at least trying to court this company that does work in green energy. Their field is specifically green energy. The products that they make are Photovoltaic Inverters. Basically that is a fancy term that means they make the things that take the electricity from the solar cells and then turns it into the good stuff that your wall spits out.

I really want to get in on the engineering side, but it looks like I am going to have to work my way up through the company from near the bottom. It seems the only entry level position is in customer service, but it looks like I could go lateral then vertical, if you know what I mean, and somehow come out on top as an engineer in 2 years or less. Sounds like an okay time frame to me.

Their devices play a large part in the energy efficiency of a solar power system. It does not matter how much energy you are getting from the solar panels, if there is a large loss in the system during power conversion then you aren’t as energy efficient as possible. This may not seem like a big deal, as you have a basically unlimited supply of energy from the sun. The benefit of having a most efficient power conversion ( I have heard of some power converters operating in the 95% efficient range) is that your solar panels can be smaller and therefore cheaper and able to fit on smaller roofs. I know that the panels themselves usually get all the press, but it is unfair to look at them as being the single most important part of the system.

So, you have stuck with me this long; I’ll let you in on the name of the company, SMA Solar Technology. They come from Germany. I guess America is a prime market for something.